Israel and Torture
Schroeter, Leonard
ISRAEL AN) TORTURE Leonard Schroeter At the request of moment Magazine I attended and observed portions of the National Lawyers' Guild convention held in Seattle in late August. My purpose was to...
...Police and military perpetrators of prisoner abuse or violence toward civilians have been, and are, tried and punished...
...The approved public ethic is one of freedom, democracy, and'dislike for discriminatory and unequal protection of the law...
...His work has appeared in New Republic, Nation, Midstream, Civil Liberties Review, and other journals...
...This is all the more remarkable because a large majority of Israelis grew up in cultures where there was no tradition or experience of human rights...
...More than half of all Israelis came from Afro-Asian states where civil liberties remain virtually unknown...
...On such a relative scale, Israel ranks far above communist countries and the so-called "third world," but falls below the standards of the United States, Canada, and many of the Western European democracies...
...Attorneys-represent their clients—often vigorously...
...And nothing in my Israeli experience had caused me to revise these attitudes...
...My experience had not led me to be a defender of police, prosecutors, the military or governments generally...
...thorities, although the bulk of my time was committed to problems involving the freeing of Soviet Jews...
...My conclusions are that although all police, military and governments tend to abuse power by their possession of it, there are relative differences dependent upon the absoluteness of power, the restraints imposed by its division, the vigor of rule of law, traditions of freedom and the presence of a civic ethic...
...Top Israeli leaders have denied torture of prisoners, and it is conceivable that they remain unaware of it...
...As a result of increased concerns on the part of Israeli libertarians, in November, 1971, we were able to form the Association for Civil Rights in Israel—a kind of Israel Civil Liberties Union...
...My investigation involved speaking to government and military officials, judges, police and prison authorities, journalists, Knesset members, lawyers (including radical ones) and some Palestinians, although not as many as I desired...
...These inquiries continued over approximately a two-year period...
...Those which need it most do not permit it—Israel, although it does not nurture them, does tolerate volunteer human rights groups...
...My background included being on the legal staff of Thurgood Marshall at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, as well as a deep involvement in the American civil rights movement...
...Torture, the charge that has attracted the most attention, apparently does occur, but much of its documentation has been unreliable and suspect...
...But selectivity of criticism must be condemned because it does violence to standards which must be universal in their application...
...Most observers have agreed that the "occupation" authorities have shown more respect for due process than could reasonably be expected from a military administration, given the extraordinary tensions of the past decade and the exceptional exigencies of security considerations for a beleaguered nation...
...All these experiences caused me to feel that by training, experience, attitude and access I had a unique, long-term opportunity to evaluate Israel's behavior in the human rights field and compare it to other countries with which I was familiar...
...I became its acting chairperson...
...Those who allege the contrary, in my opinion, articulate their prejudices, or their constricted and myopic ideology...
...The protection of human rights is clearly not the goal of the rhetoric...
...Some of my impressions were in corporated in moment's article on the Guild last month...
...As to specific charges of administrative detention, deportation and destruction of homes of suspected subversives, all of those noxious violations of rights are permitted by laws (most of them relics of the Mandate Period), and are a matter of government and military occupation policy...
...What I learned led me to believe that there had been grave misinterpretation of the facts by critics, and little objective analysis by defenders of Israel's policies...
...Judges, by and large are independent, though not always courageous...
...All countries need a civil liberties union...
...I visited prisons and West Bank cities, and also studied documents to which I had access...
...How then can we explain the increased and orchestrated chorus of charges against Israel, and the reflexive, defensive and often disingenuous retorts by Israeli defenders...
...Terrorism is not permitted, nor should it be, even though it calls itself "progressive national liberation...
...This should surprise no thoughtful person, although it may be heretical to true believers of varying types...
...Due process in the Anglo-American sense is a generally accepted standard, and built into the laws and decisions of the land...
...My purpose was to evaluate the Guild's position on alleged human rights violations in Israel...
...Terrorists may see themselves as "freedom fighters," but no state acquiesces to its own destruction, and both Jewish and Arab populations are entitled to public safety and protection...
...A large number came from Eastern European countries where there was hardly a useful experience in freedom...
...At the Ministry of Justice I had contact with police, prosecuting, judicial and military auLeonard Schroeter is an attorney in Seattle and author of The Last Exodus...
...Freedom in all countries of the world, including Israel, needs its protectors...
...Thus, when in late 1969 and 1970 charges were directed against Israel by the United Nations' Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International, various news media and left-wing groups such as the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, indicting Israel for violations of human rights, particularly in the administered territories, this created grave personal concern for me...
...Most important of all, the rule of law does not apply in Israel despite occasional abuse...
...In addition, I wrote for The Jerusalem Post, and also numbered among my colleagues and social friends many news media people, Israeli and foreign...
...The 1970 National Lawyers' Guild Practitioner article by Ab-deen Jabara, "Israel and Human Rights," detailed these accusations...
...All are unnecessary, unwise and insupportable—and are internally criticized within Israel...
...Usually these cases arose in connection with demonstrations, most particularly by the "Black Panthers," and occasionally by "peace" groups or left-wingers...
...Until I left for Israel I had spent many years on the National Board of the American Civil Liberties Union...
...We interviewed some Israelis who had experienced violations of their rights through police brutality...
...Human Rights Commission...
...Political dissent, communist activity, anti-Zionism, Palestinian nationalism and other heresies are permitted...
...The Jewish experience is too critical a part of the historic memory and the recent history of most Israelis to permit them to tolerate a society wholly insensitive to human rights considerations...
...The recent allegation of the National Lawyers' Guild's Middle East delegation—that Israel is guilty of administrative detention, arrests and deportations, destruction of homes, confessions secured through torture, and general repression of Palestinian dissent and nationalist activity—are all charges virtually identical to those made in 1969 and 1970...
...From 1970 through most of 1972 I was a Principal Legal Assistant to the Attorney General of Israel...
...These views are expressed in tolerated media, through political parties and in free elections, both in Israel and in the administered territories...
...I disliked abuse of power and tended to disbelieve the self-serving denials of the authorities...
...What I heard and saw of the behavior of the Guild and its delegates was extraordinarily unpleasant...
...Since my perspective is strikingly different from the Guild's position, which I view as indefensible, my comments may assist the reader in reaching a balanced viewpoint concerning Israel's conduct respecting human rights...
...Only minimal input was possible for me through the Ministry of Justice or the Knesset Committee charged with drafting an Israel Basic Law on Human Rights, where I acted as a legal advisor...
...political objectives are...
...I was well aware of, and sensitive to, the abuse of individual and minority group rights by the coercive power of government...
...They were not as systematic as I would have liked: they were limited by my poor Hebrew and non-existent Arabic, nor did I ever have the opportunity for an in-depth interview of any Palestinian Arab who claimed to have been a victim...
...Finally, there is a civic ethic articulated by those who form and lead public opinion...
...In any event, it is clearly neither widespread nor officially approved...
...After reading it I specifically investigated its claims as well as those of Amnesty International, and evaluated details of individual cases where abuses had been charged by such groups as the U.N...
Vol. 3 • November 1977 • No. 1
